If you go down to the woods today, one thing is for sure: it won’t be boring.

While I do love making family photos at home, I think it is just as special to head out somewhere interesting for an adventure, particularly once kids get a little older, or if you know they are high energy, and love being in nature.

The great thing about heading out to a beach, or a forest, is that makes it so easy to avoid having to pose or be more formal, I can just focus on capturing your family in a really natural way, letting curiosity lead our exploration. That makes kids really happy and comfortable, which means happy and relaxed parents! I have lots of suggestions for gorgeous iconic (or quiet) locations like the one for this session below, if you are not sure where to go. You can even pack a picnic for afterwards, or head nearby to one of the beautiful eateries, pubs or wineries that pepper our VIctorian countryside. That way you make a day of it, and your photographs capture a memory of a shared adventure.

So much love, a window seat in the sun in a kitchen full of story, a gaggle of chickens, time (the sort that seeks to fill the hour not the year), flowers spilling out from bright corners, a chair placed just so. Life with kids free as birds on a rope swing, with dogs that found you as much as you found them, and a storybook pony, and jelly slice sweet on your tongue. Life with the kindest heart-centred children, because you showed them how to be so. The luck that is borne of hard work, the daily side-by-side in the muddy ruts, that builds the beautiful dream. Open fields to lose yourself in, and the dearest hearts to find you again. Bales of fresh hay between the earth and the sky. The horizon that hears laughter and tears, and holds them both beautiful.

Look after the pennies, look after the pennies, the secret is not in the pounds.